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A couple of Caps-Busters in Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov, for starters.

And Tyler Bozak for power-play enders.

Kadri to Bozak at the side of the crease and — PANDEMONIUM — the Maple Leafs dusted off Washington in a ventricle-thumping 4-3 finish, just one-minute-and-thirty-seven seconds into OT.

Yes, improbably, Toronto leads this first-round playoff tilt two games to one, against the best team in the NHL.

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Mercy.

Back to the near-beginning, where this encounter started to change its tenor: The hardest-nosed Leaf and the biggest-mouth Leaf, Komarov and Kadri, almost unilaterally turning Game 3 into Bedlam on Bay.

As a tag-team tandem, pumping the oomph back into a game that had threatened to go off the rails way too soon.

Set the fearless standard. And that’s something to be going on with as the sense of this series not-so-subtly shifts.

Perhaps the home-side twitchiness to start was to be expected, on the ice and in the stands, since last the Leafs were this playoff way at the Air Canada Centre was May 12, 2013.

Giddiness verged on hysteria verged on hushed disbelief as Washington jumped into an early 2-0 lead; first period had hardly got its feet wet, the Leafs tangled and hemmed in their own end, rarely penetrating the O-zone, and Frederik Andersen not sharp.

Heck, Morgan Rielly — most steadfast of the blue-line crew in this first round tilt, and reunited with upper-body-recovered partner Nikita Zaitsev — was so over-amped in his first playoff appearance at the ACC, parents just in from B.C. to behold, he neutralized an out-of-the-chute Toronto man advantage by drawing an embellishing infraction on the holding infraction.

So Rielly was spectatin’ from the box during the four-on-four episode which resulted in Nicklas Backstrom opening the scoring.

Scarcely two minutes later, that No. 8 fellow provided Washington with their first two-goal lead of the series. The crowd, inside and outside, went Zombie numb.

Which was where K & K took out the stiffs on a shift from Planet Frenzy.

Kadri KAPOWED Brooks Orpik, twice. His brother-in-BOOM just crushed that No. 8 fellow at the other end of the ice.

“It was a tough start obviously — two shots, two goals,” Komarov frowned in the dressing room later.

“Then Nazzi had that big hit on Orpik. That’s how we’re trying to play. Some nights you get a big hit and the game changes.”

A shift change.

“It’s inspiring,” Kadri burbled, meaning not their two-fer bang-bang but how teammates responded.

That was the first surge of energy the Leafs had shown and it reverberated throughout the lineup, almost connect-the-dots leading, next shift, to Auston Matthews’ first playoff goal, first playoff point in fact, tapping in his own pinball rebound: Puck, on a heads-up breakout that began with Rielly, went off the face of Nate Schmidt, back to Matthews, who semi-whiffed on a shot stopped by Braden Holtby — you know, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner — but the puck trickled back almost coyly to Super-Rook and he stuffed it.

Cuckoo at the ACC, as Matthews went for a knee-skidding celebration.

“I love seeing that, I love seeing my teammates do well,” said Kadri. “It was obviously a huge goal for us at the time. I just felt that, prior to that, there wasn’t much out there. Not really much space. You’ve got to fight and grind for every inch you get. I just felt the need to take a couple of opportunities and make a couple of clean hits.”

Bone-janglers.

“It was a huge turning point, huge shift from Nazzi,” said an appreciative Rielly afterwards. “And it wasn’t just one shift from him tonight. He was outstanding all night. But when he goes out there and creates that energy, it can turn a game around.

“We love it when he’s playing like that.”

The Capitals, still looking rather taken aback by the nerve of this upstart opponent, these high-spirited kidlets who just keep coming, got a giftie of sorts when a safe-as-houses three-on-three entry into the Leaf zone turned into an erratic rebound and ridiculous-angle 3-1 goal by Evgeny Kuznetsov.

A young team, as these Leafs are, perhaps overwhelmed in front of a crowd utterly adoring, might have been expected to unravel. But these Leafs, circa 2016-17, don’t fray so easily.

Toronto’s rookie-studded lines kept forcing turnovers, rendering Washington dizzy with their speed, while Kadri and Komarov continued to lay on the ornery, all snarl and smoking nostrils.

Somehow the Leafs survived two minutes of five-on-three deficiency, when Matt Martin was fingered on a double-roughing call in the middle frame, then further endured without disaster a too-many-men-on-the-ice shemozzle.

Nothing came of it, beyond a jaw-dropping gambit by Holtby streaking out maybe 35 to 40 feet from his net to sweep poke-check the puck away from Mitch Marner breaking in alone.

Kadri and Komarov, combo-simpatico, then drew blood on the scoreboard rather than rattling bodies on the ice.

Kid Connor Brown, actually, doing the dirty dancing in the slot with Orpik — who really did have a night from hell — and effectively screening Holtby as Komarov got the puck to Kadri between the hashmarks. His tee shot deflected off Orpik’s skate, pinging behind Holtby, and the Leafs were within one again.

Yet another freshman, the ever-industrious Zach Hyman — forecheck disruption the name of his game — was doing just that in the dying minute of the period, creating havoc behind the Washington goal, spadework that ended up with the puck on Matthews’ stick out front, Holtby save, before William Nylander calmly popped it into a gaping net, first career playoff goal.

Toronto had racked up seven shots on goal in the third before the Caps got even one but it was a grind from there on, Andersen saved by the grace of his bang-bang goalposts on Kuznetsov’s bazooka with four minutes left in regulation.

Lars Eller laying a high stick on Hyman brought Toronto out for the OT with 1:45 on the power-play clock. Twice the Leafs were swept back trying to get over the blue line before Kadri, from the half-boards, found Bozak for the redirect.

This was not risk-averse hockey. Which is why it’s been thrilling hockey through three.

Playoff hockey between two gallant teams that can’t be contained to 60 minutes.

Wish it could go on and on and on and …

Correction – April 18, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to Alex Ovechkin as No. 88.

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